Today I reached a milestone, one that puts a big smile on my face. 20kgs weight loss. TWENTY KILOGRAMS. Wahoo!To put things into perspective, my 6yr old son weighs 22kgs. I've practically lost the equivalent of a 6yr old child, an entire human. It's a lot, and I'm proud.

I feel great. I feel better than great actually. I feel liberated, free and without worry about this anymore. I used to spend so much time worrying about my weight, how I looked, how my body felt - it used to creep into my conscience all the time and I would push it out and try to ignore it. And now it doesn't.

The biggest difference I have noticed, aside from the obvious physical things, is the removal of negative self talk. I'm a pretty good person, at least I try to be, so I don't usually beat myself up about much to do with how I live my life, but I was ALWAYS beating myself up about my body, and about my lack of ability to do something about my current situation. I would lie in bed at night and talk myself into 'starting tomorrow' and give myself a good stern talking to. And then I wouldn't. And then I would get mad at myself and the negative self talk and cruel things I would say to myself would start.

Negative feeds negative and once you get into that cycle, it's really hard to get out of. For me it was STARTING, and making changes that started the positive cycle and it eventually drowned out the negative. It's so much easier to be positive if you are making positive changes and choices you know are going to make a difference.

I get people congratulating me as 'it must be so hard'. I'll be honest with you, really honest. Spoiler alert. It's not been hard. It does not have to be hard. I have not limited myself, deprived myself, gone hungry or gone on binges and had to get myself back on some imaginary wagon. There is no wagon.

I changed the way I thought.

I opened up my mind to trying new things and have been on an amazing path of food discovery - learning about nutrition and things that taste delicious that are also so good for me (who knew?!).

I changed the way I viewed weightloss and health.

I changed the way I thought about sustainability and the future, I want this to LAST. There is no short term goal or event that I am doing this for. THIS IS MY LIFE.

I want to be strong and able. I want to participate. I want a better quality of life.